Re: [office] ODF 1.2 Single-Level Conformance and Law of UnintendedConsequences

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Rob,

robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
<snip>
>> I do puzzle and hesitate over the second one. If I create an application 
>>     
>
>   
>> that does everything required of it by ODF 1.2 and at the same time 
>> allows a user photo editing capabilities for images that are then stored 
>>     
>
>   
>> in a conforming ODF 1.2 document. That is the resulting file is fully 
>> ODF 1.2 conformant. So, in what way is my application not conforming to 
>> ODF 1.2?
>>
>> Or to put it another way, doesn't the greater include the lesser?
>>
>> Or is there some other issue that I am overlooking?
>>
>>     
>
> With the proposed conformance clause, the application would be conformant, 
> or at least that is my reading.  A consumer or producer is conformant 
> based on its _ability_ to consume or produce conformant ODF.  But it is 
> not required to be exclusively capable of only that task.  All we can 
> speak to is the ODF Producer -> ODF Document -> ODF Consumer relationship, 
> without denying that there may be other concurrent relationships.  And 
> within that relationship, the medium of exchange (the ODF Document) is 
> distinguished from the endpoints of the exchange.  If we were exchanging 
> ODF Producers among different parties and expected ODF Producers to be 
> substitutable and interoperable, then we might limit their extensions as 
> well.  But going in that direction is beyond what this TC has previously 
> discussed and I am not pushing for it.  But constraining the properties of 
> the exchanged document itself, where users do expect interoperability, 
> that is something a bit more achievable. 
>
>   
OK, with that understanding, then I lean more towards the alternative 
that takes out "loosely conforming," assuming that we don't run into 
other issues as we try to do so.

Constraining documents that we define for interchange seems like 
reachable ground to me.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)